• Where did you get this information?
• Can I make a suggestion?

(back)Most of this was collected from a wide variety of online sources. These include original works by DSLR members, other online FAQs, forum posts, and links suggested by other members.

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by removed
last modified: 2004-06-15 00:58:58

(back)Absolutely. If you want to suggest an addition for the FAQ, IM one of the owners (owners can be seen at the top of the main FAQ page) or click here to request a specific addition.

If this is more of a general question, try posting it in the Web Hosting Forum.

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by removed
last modified: 2004-06-08 12:10:41

• What is a Reseller?
• What is Virtual Hosting or Shared Hosting?
• What is a Virtual Private Server (VPS) or Virtual Dedicated Server (VDS)?
• What is a Dedicated Server?
• What is Colo or Colocation (Co-location)?
• What is 95th percentile billing?
• What is a Control Panel?

(back)
Resellers are much like regular hosts, except they buy a block of shared hosting from a service provider and then sell that block to their customers.

Many resellers start off by using a control panel to host domains and customers. Web Host Manager (WHM), a subset of CPanel, enables anybody with point and click precision to become a reseller. (See »Webhosting FAQ »What is a Control Panel?)

If a reseller offers good service at a good value, you will gain customers and experience. A reseller has a good opportunity to gain experience hosting a limited number of customers. Once you get to a certain level, you will want to move up to a dedicated server.

Who are they?

Resellers are usually commonplace people- your 18 year old on the block wanting to venture into the complex and greedy world of hosting, to your 72 year old great-grandfather looking for an extra source of easy income. Their experience with hosting varies widely, from zero to usually mediocre.

Advantages

The big advantage to a reseller is that they're usually magnitudes cheaper than the actual hosting company. The reseller deals with the physical host (which is more expensive), and you deal with the reseller. You may also get individual attention tailored to your needs, depending on the host.

Disadvantages

Since the reseller is often the third in line from the actual machine, liability for uptime and server maintenance is often not directly in their hands. Experience in fixing problems may not be their forte.

A word of warning

Resellers which have extremely cheap plans are also infamous for being Fly By Night hosts which mock up hosting plans, take money, offer service for a short term... and then proceed to withdraw a large amount of money and "fly away at night" unexpectedly. In case you have to move to another provider, keep a backup of your site.

If you're curious about a host, post about it in our forums, and the regulars should be able to tell you more about the host in question.

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by devrandom edited by big greg
last modified: 2006-02-25 13:53:52

(back)A virtual host is a computer that provides web or email services for several different hosts. Virtual hosting is often used by sites that do not require the bandwidth and storage of a dedicated host server.

A web services company offering virtual hosting will perform all of the hardware and software maintenance on the server. One limitation of shared hosting is that one misbehaving customer can impact all the customers on the same server. The web services company should monitor the performance of the shared host system to make sure that it doesn't become overloaded with too many customers.

A web services company offering virtual hosting will also offer email hosting. You will typically manage your site, installed packages, and email using "control panel" software. »Webhosting FAQ »What is a Control Panel?

The web service company may also web site production tools and additional services. A web services company offering shared hosting also usually provides domain name registration. Many people register their names with the web services company, which can cause problems when you want to move your web site to another host. Web hosting companies with sleazy business practices will make it difficult or nearly impossible to transfer the domain name you have registered with them. For that reason, we suggest that you keep your domain registrar separate from your web hosting company.

For more information, please see the Wikipedia entry on Shared hosting.

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by removed edited by big greg
last modified: 2006-02-25 13:46:27

(back)Virtual Private Servers or Virtual Dedicated Servers are provided by software that splits a single physical server into multiple virtual servers.

VPS systems are often used for someone who doesn't need a whole server, but wants root or administrative control over a server. Another advantage is that you have complete control of an isolated environment. A runaway script or crash on one VPS doesn't impact the other VPS instances.

VPS is best for people who have outgrown shared hosting, but don't need a dedicated server. Accordingly, your own VPS is priced between shared hosting and a dedicated server.

For more information, please see Wikipedia's entry on Vitrual private servers.

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by big greg
last modified: 2006-02-25 13:42:22

(back)A dedicated server is typically a single server that is rented from a internet hosting company. It's the next step up from a Virtual Private Server.

The user rents the server, software and an Internet connection from the web hosting company. The server's hardware maintenance is handled by the web hosting company. Typically the web hosting company may install operating system patches and will provide a limited amount of "hands-on" operations (such as pressing the reboot button).

Larger sites or sites with several servers tend to move up to Colocation.

For more information, please see the Wikipedia entry on Dedicated hosting service.

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by removed edited by big greg
last modified: 2006-02-19 14:49:27

(back)Colo or Colocation is used when multiple computer systems are used to deliver content to the Internet.

The colocation company provides a dedicated facility with multiple Internet connections (for reliability and performance), air conditioning, and uninterruptable power.

Colocation is typically sold by cabinet space or by the amount of space in a secured cage within a physically secure room. The cabinet space may be purchased as 1/8, 1/4, 1/4, or a full cabinet. Rack-mounted computer equipment is installed in the racks by the customer. The customer is responsible for all hardware and software maintenance.

Internet bandwidth is provided by a dedicated Ethernet connection. Bandwidth is usually an additional charge on top of the cabinet space.

For more information, please see this Wikipedia article on Colocation.

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by removed edited by big greg
last modified: 2006-02-25 13:45:16

(back)The term "95th percentile billing" is often heard when an Internet connection is provided as "burstable" (variable rate) bandwidth. This is the case with the Internet connection used with colo and dedicated server web hosting plans. For these solutions, the Internet connection is provided as a Ethernet port on the data center's LAN, and billed according to your usage.

said by »www.seanadams.com/95/:

---

The 95th percentile is the smallest number that is greater that 95% of the numbers in a given set. The reason this statistic is so useful in measuring data throughput is that is gives a very accurate picture of the cost of the bandwidth.

Here's an example. Suppose an ISP sells you a T1 line, but you're only using it to access the web. Even though you might frequently download very large files (filling the pipe) your cost to the ISP is negligible, because your usage is intermittent. A single T3 connection to the backbone could easily support hundreds of such downstream customers, and never become saturated. As another example, suppose you are hosting a very busy web site that half-way fills your T1 for several hours every day. This type of bandwidth is more expensive, because your ISP can't oversell their connection to the backbone as effectively.

The important thing to realize is that it doesn't cost your ISP anything to sell you a pipe of any particular size - it is the sustained rate of data transfer that costs them money. The sum of the 95th percentile usage of all of an ISP's customers predicts the peak amount of backbone traffic that the ISP will incur (in a given direction).

---

How is the "95th percentile billing" calculated?

Counters on network devices are read every few minutes. The total number of bytes transferred (in and out) is determined each time the counters are read. The higher of these two numbers (inbound or outbound traffic), divided by the time period (in seconds), results in a single bps (bits per second) transfer measurement.

Each measurement is stored in a database. At the end of each billing cycle, the measurements are sorted in decreasing order. The top 5% of these measurements are thrown out. The next highest bps measurement is the "the 95th percentile", and that's the rate for that billing cycle.

More graphics and software for finding the 95th percentile can be found on »www.seanadams.com/95/

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by removed edited by big greg
last modified: 2004-06-26 17:19:43

(back)The control panel is used to manage the services on your web host.

Using the control panel you can see you used disk space, used bandwidth, configure email addresses, and other tasks.

You will access your control panel with a web browser, and it will be securied with a username and password.

The web service provider may use any of a number of popular control panels. Some popular brands include CPanel, Ensim, Plesk, and DirectAdmin.

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by big greg
last modified: 2004-06-09 23:09:47

• How can I pick the right web host?
• How do I figure out where a web site is hosted?
• How can I host my site for free?
• How can I get a domain name for free?
• How can I get my DNS records hosted for free?
• Can I host a web site on my residential Cable or DSL connection?

(back)Here are some key points to remember when looking for a web host:

• Reliability is key. What's the point of having a website if you can't reach it when you need to? Sites with uptime guarantees are good. But beware: few web hosts can give true 100% reachability.
  
  
• Reasonable service. This says reasonable for a reason. If a web host offers 50MB of disk space and 500MB of transfer for $30/mo, don't go for it. This, however, goes both ways. If a web host offers 10GB of disk space and 40GB of transfer for $5/mo, avoid it. Buying web hosting can be just like buying a car - if it looks too good to be true, it probably is.
  
  
• Support. What happens if you run into a problem with your website? Do you have anyone to contact? Some sites will have an "online help" forum or some kind of trouble ticket system. Those are good ways of getting help, but a phone number is always more reassuring than having to go through a maze.
  
  
• Ease of use. Look for a web host that offers a good control panel. Some hosts offer their own control panel. However, some of the ones listed in the FAQ entry in the previous sentence will work just fine.
  
  
• Track record. Some web hosts have only been in business for weeks and are already promising perfect uptime, amazing speeds, and so on. Usually, your best bet is to WHOIS the host's domain name. You can do so by clicking the "WHOIS" link in the previous sentence and pasting the web host's domain name. (ex. dslreports.com (domain name)) If the "Creation Date" is less than six months old, your best bet is to wait a bit and see if the host stays in business.
  
  
• Location. This one isn't as important, but can make a big difference on some sites. Many "web hosts" are run by teenage kids using low-price (~$99/mo is the current rate) servers. You can find out where a server is located by using this method. If you get "Everyones Internet" as a result, your best bet is to stay away. You'll also want to consider the location of people who will be accessing your web site. If you're running a forum for Dodge owners in Texas, choosing a web server in Canada or Europe would be a poor idea.
  

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by removed edited by big greg
last modified: 2004-06-26 17:21:45

(back)This procedure finds out where a web host is located by looking at its assigned IP address block. This method may not work on all hosts. Some hosts do not have a range of IP addresses assigned to them. If you end up getting "Verio" or "Level3" or any other carrier out of this, it means that the host does not have its own IP block.

All we are going to do is find the host's IP Address, then use this information to look up their IP Address block with the American Registry for Internet Numbers.

If you're running Windows, the process for this is pretty simple. We'll use dslreports.com as an example.

•Make a command prompt window. Go to Start -> Run and enter cmd (or command if you're running 95/98/ME).

•Lookup the host's IP address using nslookup. For our example, enter nslookup www.dslreports.com.

•Find the IP Address. The field we'll be using is the one that says "Address". Copy the number from there. In our example, the IP Address will resolve to 209.123.109.175

•Use the ARIN web site to find who that IP address is assigned to. Go to »www.arin.net and paste the IP Address we got from in the last step (209.123.109.175) into the WHOIS box at the top of the right side, then click "Search WHOIS".

•You're done. We now know that www.dslreports.com is hosted at »www.nac.net in Parsippany, NJ.

This method doesn't always work, but it can get you valuable information. If you have difficulty finding out where a web host is located, please post a question in /forum/webhost

Another good resource can be found here:
»www.dnsstuff.com/
(thanks to forum user fire100 for the recommendation)

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by removed edited by big greg
last modified: 2006-08-02 17:54:39

(back)Your best best for hosting a small site is to use the free web space you get with your Internet Service Provider. The Terms of Service for most home broadband connections does NOT allow web site hosting.

If your ISP doesn't offer the services you need, you could try to find a free web site provider. Most free web site providers get their revenue from advertising. They may insert banners into your web site content. Free web hosts tend to disappear without a trace, so be sure to have a backup of all of your files.

If you need server side scripting, database support, or SSL encryption, you will probably have to pay someone to host your web site.

For help in finding a free or low cost web host, please start a new topic in the Webhosting Chat forum.

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by big greg
last modified: 2005-07-08 22:39:33

(back)You can get free .tk domain names at the .tk domain registry. However, you will get an advertisement on any page hosted with the .tk TLD (top level domain).

It is far more desirable to pay $8 (and up) a year to register your own domain name in the .COM, .NET, .ORG,. or .US TLDs. See http://www.icann.org/registrars/accredited-list.html.

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by big greg
last modified: 2004-10-05 12:11:18

(back)The Domain Name System resolves domain names into addresses. Each domain has a set of data associated with it. This data is called a "zone".

The address of each domain's DNS servers is something that is set when you register the domain.

Each domain should have at least two DNS servers designated as the "authority" for a domain. The authoritative servers contain the a copy of all the zone's data.

Some domain registrars will also provide DNS services for you, but most charge extra for DNS services.

ZoneEdit will host the DNS records for up to five domains for free. There is a small charge if you exceed a generous amount per traffic per month, or you want to manage more than 5 domains. »www.zoneedit.com/

Another place that will provide free DNS records is Granite Canyon. »www.granitecanyon.com/

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by big greg

(back)In general, no.

The Terms of Service (TOS) for most residential broadband connections don't allow you to run a web site on your connection. A few ISPs (notably SBC DSL) will allow you to run web servers on your connection. Check your ISP's Terms of Service and Acceptable Use Policy for details.

Some ISPs will not notice if you run a web service on port 80, as long as the traffic is very low. Once your ISP finds your web site, they may ask you to shut it down, block port 80, or turn off your broadband service. Some ISPs block incoming port 80 in an attempt to block web site hosting. Using a different port number may allow you to run a web site, but you will still be violating the TOS.

Another disadvantage of a residential connection is that they usually don't come with a static IP Address. Having a dynamic IP address means that you have to update the DNS name-to-address information each time your IP address changes.

In order to run a web site on your Cable or DSL connection, you may have to upgrade to a business class connection. These types of accounts usually include a small block of fixed IP addresses and the TOS usually allows web site services. Business packages are usually available for both Cable and DSL.

Business broadband access packages are more expensive than consumer packages, but you may be able to offset the higher cost by selling some services to a few family and friends (this is usually allowed on a business class line). However, the cost added of a business class broadband connection will probably more money than your existing connection plus a low cost web host service.

Most DSL and Cable packages come with a free web site hosted at your ISP. The free site usually has modest capabilities (small disk quota and low bandwidth quota, no server scripting, no database support).

If you need server side scripting, database support, or SSL encryption, and you aren't ready for the business class broadband cost, you will be best off paying someone to host your web site. This should cost you between $3 and $8 per month, depending on the web and email services you need.

If you want a free web site, see »Webhosting FAQ »How can I host my site for free?

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by big greg
last modified: 2006-06-24 13:00:16

• What's this section about?
• Hosting hall of shame

(back)This section is used to incorporate some forum threads into the FAQ for easy viewing. Users should be able to look up a host of their choice using the FAQ.

This is still a work in progress.

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by removed

(back)This entry contains links to threads in which some of our forum users expressed a concern about being scammed, mislead, or treated badly by particular web hosting service providers. It also contains threads where we have exposed web hosts with less than honest business practices.

Note: We do not have the ability to verify the any information provided in threads as true. Any information contained in these threads should be used as part of a larger dataset of information when researching web hosting providers.

xeohosting.com/jezzohosting.com - »xeoHosting.com = SCAMMERS/CONS
GETi.com - »Is GETi.com Web Hosting a good deal?
hypreed.com - »Free WebHosting with unlimted space and bandwidth!
"anyxhost" - »Anyxhost down?
esonlinehosting.com - »Anyone Ever Here Of Or Use ....
yaztech.tk - »Check out »yaztech.tk
cyclone-hosting.net - (topic offline)
Host Excellence and ixwebhosting.com - »Host Excellence...scam?
foreverhost.us - »[foreverhost.us] what do you think?
dopegame.com - »Web hosting great deals.
oxygenhosting.com - »Need small hosting solution
topspeedweb.com - »topspeedweb.com
radiolandonline.com - »Radiolandonline.com
crosswalkhosting.com - »My notice to Crosswalk.com
Filefront.com - »Filefront.com?
entrepreneurserver.com - »www.entrepreneurserver.com
Xeeblo - »Free 600MB / 5GB and Higher!
xtremefh.com - »Free 400MB Webspace, 5500MB Monthly Bandwidth
synced.org and polaris-central.com - »none
personalsites.org - »My experience with personalsites.org -- STAY AWAY
citywidetech.net - »Looking to start hosting or need a host..

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by removed
last modified: 2006-11-28 09:23:36